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It’s Showtime Has a More Appropriate Rival, and It’s Not Eat Bulaga and APO Tanghali Na
August 22, 2018 Consider ‘Eat Bulaga’ and ‘APO Tanghali Na’ are the past tenses as ‘It’s Showtime”s archrival. While the three noontime shows have been at each other’s throats since ‘It’s Showtime’ moved to its current timeslot in 2012, recent events suggest that ‘Eat Bulaga’ and ‘APO Tanghali Na’ are no longer consider itself a true rival of the former. Instead, another variety show (albeit on a later timeslot) has taken its place as ‘It’s Showtime”s arch-nemesis. Enter ‘Wowowin’, the late-afternoon variety show hosted by Willie Revillame and is currently on the air for the past three years. For whatever reason, the ‘relationship’ between ‘It’s Showtime’, ‘APO Tanghali Na’ and ‘Wowowin’ can be summed up in one word. Take it away, Spongebob Squarepants. Throughout the year, most episodes of ‘It’s Showtime’ have run past its allotted three-hour period mainly due to Vice Ganda’s excessive bantering on ‘Tawag ng Tanghalan’. As a matter of fact, one of its more recent episodes concluded at around 4:00 p.m., by far a record time for the noontime show. GMA is usually strict when it comes to running time, but for some unexplained reason, they did not implement such strictness when it comes to ‘Wowowin’. In the event that ‘It’s Showtime’ goes overtime while ‘APO Tanghali Na’ still dominates the noontime show, GMA countered by allowing ‘Wowowin’ to go past its normal 90-minute duration so that both ’24 Oras,’ ‘TV Patrol’ and ‘Express Balita’ can start at the same time. Different timeslots, similar objectives. This is essentially a Willie Revillame and Vice Ganda thing. Willie, for his part, was the master of working overtime, back when he was still on TV5 for ‘Willing Willie’, ‘Wil Time Big Time’ and ‘Wowowillie’. However, GMA made certain conditions when Willie signed a contract with the network three years ago, such as ‘Wowowin’ only airing on a ‘taped as live’ basis and running for only 90 minutes. Suffice to say, GMA sort of unleashed the wild side of Willie this year. Which leads to Vice Ganda, who probably learned a thing or two from his frenemy Willie about talking too much. And for whatever reason, ABS-CBN is simply letting him do the talking for as long as he wants. As a consequence, some of ABS-CBN’s afternoon and primetime programs began to suffer in the ratings, mainly because Vice spoke a little too long. Perhaps the two can someday have a show of their own that combines the elements of both ‘It’s Showtime’, ‘APO Tanghali Na’ and ‘Wowowin’. But then again, they are not usually the best of friends, such as when Vice poked fun over Willie’s tirade a few years ago. Still, wouldn’t it be great if the two variety show greats appear in public together and talk every once in while? That should make people forget about their excesses. Either way, both ABS-CBN, GMA and IBC should do (and I mean DO) something about this ‘overtime’ thing. This is simply a time-waster and viewers are fed up with it.